PA Bill Number: HB829
Title: In preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Description: An Act amending the act of April 12, 1951 (P.L.90, No.21), known as the Liquor Code, in preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Last Action: Signed in House
Last Action Date: Jul 3, 2024
Philly archbishop: 'Only a fool' would believe gun control will solve mass violence :: 08/10/2019
The Roman Catholic archbishop of Philadelphia penned an op-ed earlier this week arguing that legislative measures will not solve the underlying problems that lead to mass violence.
Charles J. Chaput, who was the archbishop of Denver during the 1998 Columbine massacre, opened his article by reiterating what he said in testimony before the U.S. Senate in the wake of that shooting. "The real problem [of Columbine-like violence in our culture] is in here, in us," he asserted, going on to explain how American culture has increasingly glorified violence and selfishness.
Charles J. Chaput. (Riccardo De Luca/AP)
Pointing to the social effects of widespread abortion especially, Chaput said that "certain kinds of killing no longer even count officially as 'killing.' Certain kinds of killing we enshrine as rights and protect by law. When we live this kind of contradiction, why are we surprised at the results?"
Chaput concluded his testimony 20 years ago by warning that "civility and community" in the U.S. are eroding, and that violence would likely continue.
Regarding the three mass shootings in the past two weeks that killed at least 34 and wounded dozens more, Chaput lamented how the past two decades have been "blood-stained," as he had predicted, and that there is "no end in sight."
Conceding his belief that "assault rifles are not a birthright, and the Second Amendment is not a Golden Calf," Chaput expressed his support for legislative safeguards such as more thorough background checks.
Remembering his experience comforting the Columbine families, however, Chaput said "only a fool can believe that 'gun control' will solve the problem of mass violence. The people using the guns in these loathsome incidents are moral agents with twisted hearts. And the twisting is done by the culture of sexual anarchy, personal excess, political hatreds, intellectual dishonesty, and perverted freedoms that we’ve systematically created over the past half-century."
Chaput's arguments echo those of Mike Huckabee, who asserted to Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on Monday that the nation's problems are fundamentally spiritual.
"We've created a culture in which we said there is no God and human life isn’t really worth that much, and life is expendable, and there are lives that are disposable," the former Arkansas governor said. "And when a young man believes his life is disposable and expendable, he thinks the lives around him are, too."
